The Sweetness of Seeing Your Work being Enjoyed

Submission were closed, as of Dec. 28th, 2011.

Here's What and How

General Guidelines

Submit through Submishmash using the link above (or at the bottom of this page). Please don't submit without familiarizing yourself with this magazine. No matter how much I love a piece, I don't accept them unless they exemplify Experimental Literature. I am particularly fond of work that does so in subtle ways rather than gimmicky, so to speak, so if you feel you can make a case of why it's Experimental Literature, send your commentary at the time of submission, or even a sentence or to to me as to how it does that. Experimental is not a personal term, but a literary genre, which is not easy to define. But if you have any questions about what it is, taking a few months straight reading the links at Experimental Writing should give you some ideas. ;-).

As with any magazine, only some of the submissions are accepted. Some of them are solicited. Publication upon acceptance is also fast, and work goes not too long after acceptance, filling out the issue. New pages can be created in the magazine as we go along, too.

You are free to republish later in print anthologies or your own print chapbook or print book, with credit to Exclusive, after 6 months, but I don't accept anything that has been published anywhere at all, including your writing site, and whatever is published here should preferably not be published again anywhere online. That's what makes it Exclusive. You'll find very few magazines that take previously published material anyway, so that's not asking a lot, really. I prefer that instead of copying it once it's published to someplace else to show it off, you put up a link there, instead.

If you have questions, you may write to me, the editor, Tantra Bensko, at flameflower@runbox.com with the subject line About EX Submission.

To submit, send your creative pieces to me through Submishmash, with your bio. The commentary and photo are optional at that time, but very welcome.

Poetry should be centered on the page in a way that will translate to that on Weebly if you would like it centered. Photos, illustrations, diagrams that accompany your pieces in addition to pictures of yourself are welcome, as individual jpgs. Text that is written within visuals, whether fully legible or not, is fine. I can't, however, grab photos from documents sometimes, so they must be sent separately. Many poems must be sent as jpgs to begin with, because unusual arrangements don't translate to Weebly.

If your work is accepted,1. I will need a 72 dpi JPG photo of you, a photo of a book or books you've published if you like in addition as a SEPARATE documents from your text doc. Larger photos are best, as I like to show people how you look without enlarging and degrading the quality of the photos too much. Please make sure it will look good in a large size, without being pixilated. I like creative photos, but don't care so much for ones made by adjusting a filter to make the colors overly saturated like a poster.

2. Send your bio also in different an attached document, with a link to your website if you have one. Also include your commentary on the nature of its experimentation, in the same document, and if you don't mind, the creative works which have been accepted, or a note of which ones they were. These both go to Submishmash; see the link below.

Please put spaces between all your prose paragraphs, no indentations. My preference is not to have long blocks of text. Short paragraphs work best for reading online. Single space, and ideally, use Arial font.

Clearly label if you want it to be considered fiction or poetry.

For the Literary World Section:

Submissions are open for publication on this magazine for articles or posts about Experimental Writing:

If you are an editor, or publisher, or have an blog on the topic, feel free to send me anything about what you do, updates, theory, criticism, invitations and discussion topics, teasers, personal commentary.

If you have something coming out or already out, whether in a magazine or in book form, and would like to do an auto-review on it, as if you were someone else reviewing it, that would be great. Just send a link to the published work or where we can buy the book. Reviews of other authors' experimental work no matter how new or ancient, are welcome. Interviews are also welcome, and I don't care how much it's a dialog rather than a traditional review structure.

If you are a reader and would like to submit reviews of pieces in magazines, or magazines themselves, or of books, send them along, through the link above, using Submishmash. If your work is accepted, I'll ask for your photo, one of you, and if you wish, one of your book or books, and and also a bio (as an attachment.)

I'm open to anything here. A "blog" for a virtual book tour, rants, contemplations on the scene, certain trends, magazines and publishers or schools of thought, literary theory or criticism, interviews, dialogues, creatively, casually, or formally written essays on any topic at all that's relevant.

For poetry and fiction:

Submit unpublished work for consideration to be put up along with an analysis of its innovations. Just make sure you will be able to write the commentary if you send the creative work, and wait until acceptance to write the commentary. Creative pieces will not be published without commentary. This magazine is different that way. You are free to send multiple pieces to me up to 5000 words. There isn't much reason for you to send simultaneously to other magazines, I'd think, as I respond quickly.

I'm a proponent of the genre I label Lucid Fiction, and I have found some writers very excited to produce that style. There are articles linked here about it in the section About Experimental Writing. If you feel yours fits that, please feel free to label it so in your commentary.

Sometimes I turn down excellent work, because it doesn't exemplify the Experimental Literature genre. If you see it as fitting that genre, and it isn't obvious from the work, you'll have better chances of being accepted if you include a commentary on how it fits, plus whatever else you like, at the time of submission.

I love meta-narratives, mystical prose, anti-stories, absurdism, references to things the mass media hides, sophisticated concepts, quantum fiction, word-driven prose, complex spiritual ideas, uniquely surprising voices that are passionately beautiful. I publish experiments that are unlike anything I've seen before, really pushing beyond the boundaries. As long as your work is also Experimental, I am open to Literary, Surrealist, New Wave Fabulist, Magical Realism, Slipstream, Transgressive, and a variety of other styles.

http://lucidmembrane.weebly.com/ is where you can go to support me as the publisher by buying my books.

For pieces with text places in unusual ways on the page, send a jpg of it as well as a doc.. If centering your poem on the page is important to you, send a jpg of your poem.

Video

Please send short experimental videos previously unavailable to the public online which I can upload here or use private links, for publication. If you have video that's available online, but is not getting much traffic, and you feel it shouldn't be so obscure, well, that's OK. Send it along. This should be fun!

Video is a loose term, as this could be electronic literature, flash, graphic story, photos of something that you do in public, anything.

And

Feel free to suggest anything you like for the publication. No need to restrict yourself to the categories above. If you have a desire to get involved in the magazine, tell me what you're thinking. The art and music are taken care of for this issue. If someone is interested in guest editing issue 5, please begin during this issue applying, testing, and learning.

The only payment is exposure to a happy audience. This is entirely a volunteer operation by one busy, un-wealthy person who struggles with the technology she uses, while experiencing pain while typing. Consider entering the contest before Halloween, for a chance of payment, and if you don't win, your money will support the worthy cause of sustaining the winner, while relieving some of my burden to do so. While I have not opened up paid ads before, this is now an option if I feel I can fully endorse what you do; if I can, a fee of 20 dollars, and sending me a large jpg or HTML image would mean that it stays up through infinity, here or at the Experimental Writing site. 25 dollars for both. Please consider linking to this site to spread the word.

Contact me by email, if you like. Submit to the magazine below. (The e-chapbooks are not currently being considered other than from participants of the Secret Womb.)

http://lucidmembrane.weebly.com/ is where you can go to support me as the publisher by buying my books, such as Lucid Membrane.